Discovery/R&D

  1. Topical Ocular Biologics with Claris Bio's Clarke Atwell 6/30/2024

    Built on the back of hepatocyte growth factor discoveries by Harvard Drs. Reza Dana and Sunil Chauhan, Claris Bio is rewriting the ophthalmology rulebook. CEO Clarke Atwell acknowledges that it's not the first to bring topically-administered biologic therapies to the front of the eye, but if successful in the clinic, its Neurotrophic Keratitis candidate will vastly improve the patient experience. Atwell joins this episode of the Business of Biotech. Listen now!

  2. Oligonucleotide Opportunities in DMD with PepGen's James McArthur, Ph.D. 7/25/2022

    Among the more prevalent genetic conditions, Duchenne muscular dystrophy affects an estimated one in 3,500 male births worldwide. It's caused by mutations of the DMD gene, which regulates the production of a protein called dystrophin. Approved DMD treatments haven't demonstrated strong clinical outcomes, but James McArthur, Ph.D. and his team at PepGen are seeking to change that with a pipeline of disease-modifying peptide-conjugated oligonucleotide candidates derived from the company's Enhanced Delivery Oligonucleotide platform. The Business of Biotech caught up with Dr. McArthur at PepGen's Cambridge headquarters to learn more.

  3. Maximizing mRNA With Precision Nanosystems' James Taylor, Ph.D. 11/8/2021

    Dr. James Taylor believes that genomic medicine will prove the most revolutionary thing the life sciences industries have ever seen, and that it will ultimately become the largest therapeutic class. Dr. Taylor is president and CEO at Precision Nanosystems. He chalks up the genomic nature of biology, the fact that genomes are information-based, the breadth and validation of the genomic medicine toolbox, and the democratization of genomic medicine development as reasons to be bullish. Join Dr. Taylor and me for a conversation on why RNA and DNA delivery are game-changers, and what Precision Nanosystems is doing to push the ball downfield.

  4. Commensal Viral Vectors With Ring Therapeutics' Tuyen Ong, M.D. 4/12/2022

    When Tuyen Ong was a child, he and his family escaped Vietnam by boat in the dead of the night, bound for an Indonesian refugee camp. They spent a year in that camp before emigrating to the U.K., where Ong’s underprivileged adolescence found him growing up in the projects of London. Against the odds, Ong worked his way to UCL for an education that culminated with an M.D. Today, he’s CEO of Ring Therapeutics, a promising emerging biotech backed by Flagship Pioneering, the kingmaker behind the rise of Moderna. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, Ong shares on his challenging formative years, the unspoken love between a father and son, facing down racism as a poor Chinese kid in Vietnam and London, and how those experiences shape his leadership at Ring. Oh, and we talk about some pretty cool science, too.

  5. Bio Career Moves With Codagenix's Johanna Kaufmann, Ph.D. 10/11/2023

    On this week's episode of the Business of Biotech, Dr. Johanna Kaufmann gives us an intimate retrospective on her career to date, sharing stories about her rapid ascension from Scientist 1 to executive leadership. We dig into her wild ride through M&A, her time at GSK, and the professional and personal development regimens she subscribes to.

  6. Leveraging Lymph Nodes With Elicio's Dr. Peter DeMuth 10/30/2022

    MIT-born startup Elicio Therapeutics' novel Amphiphile Technology Platform is designed to directly engage the lymphatic system in the deployment and delivery of therapeutic payloads. We caught up with Chief Scientific Officer Peter DeMuth, Ph.D. at Elicio HQ in Boston to learn how the platform works, and how it's driving rapid clinical progress for the company's robust pipeline of therapeutic vaccines in oncology, as a cell therapy amplifier in liquid and solid tumor indications, and in prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases like COVID-19. Dr. DeMuth also shares his journey as a young scientific founder, how he's managed the transition from academic scientist to the C-suite, and how he leans into his scientific training to make a killer home brew.

  7. The Antibody Engine With Abpro's Chan Brothers 12/5/2022

    In an industry that takes new business naming conventions to etymological extremes, Abpro is a refreshingly clear exception. Brothers Ian Chan (CEO & Co-Founder) and Eugene Chan, M.D., (Chairman & Co-Founder) are antibody pros. The company's pipeline spans no fewer than 8 antibody candidates aimed at COVID-19, cancers including breast, gastric, and liver, and ophthalmologic indications DME and wet AMD. With a scientific advisory board led by Bob Langer, Ph.D. of Moderna fame and a new partnership with global powerhouse Celltrion worth a potential $1.75 billion, the company's on the move. On this episode of the Business of Biotech, the Chan brothers take us behind the scenes of Abpro's progress.

  8. High-Throughput Discovery With BIOPTIC's Andrey Dobry 1/19/2025

    Andrey "Dobry" Doronichev, the innovator who made YouTube mobile, is now revolutionizing biotech with his startup, BIOPTIC. In this episode of The Business of Biotech, Dobry explains how AI and advanced screening are reshaping drug discovery. Learn more about BIOPTIC’s bold vision, the challenges of data access, and overcoming skepticism in the biotech industry.

  9. Gene Tx For Renal Disease With Purespring CEO Richard Francis 5/2/2022

    Purespring Therapeutics launched in 2020 on the back of IP developed by renowned kidney researcher Prof. Moin Saleem, who spent decades working on podocytes when podocytes weren’t cool. Just two years later, the company boasts three gene therapy assets and a platform developed expressly to identify new therapeutic targets to address kidney disease. 

  10. Engineering Proteins For Food Allergies With Ukko's Dr. Anat Binur 10/25/2022

    Anat Binur, Ph.D. is CEO and Co-Founder at Ukko, where she's leading an effort to create new allergy therapeutics by engineering the proteins that induce immune response in people who suffer from food allergies. The effort at Ukko is deeply rooted in computational biology. The company leverages artificial intelligence to analyze how the allergen proteins interact with patients' blood in an effort to determine the specific attributes of the proteins that trigger immune response. Then, it applies a unique combination of compute power and biology to identify and understand the changes it wants to engineer and predict the best possible designs. Learn how Ukko is fostering a culture of IT and biology collaboration and what lured this dynamic entrepreneur into biopharma on this episode of the Business of Biotech.